VIEWS FROM THE LOCH
Angling,news and comment from around the loch. The news pages of St Mary's Angling Club on St Mary's loch in the Scottish Borders UK.

Sunday, 18 August 2013

An unwelcome visitor and a warning!

Photo 01 - Stevie's Rainbow Trout!

An unwelcome visitor and a warning!

Yesterday was what could
be classed as a pretty poor day weather-wise with howling winds and driving
rain, but I suppose just an example of our usual dreich summer weather.Accordingly the number of visitors we had was
low with eight anglers braving the conditions. One of our stalwarts Stevie
Nimmo took on the conditions and in a determined fashion covered the areas he
had selected in pursuit of the Brown Trout resident therein.

Concluding his excursion
at the village hall which up to now had yielded nothing at all he was at last
into a fish and coming to the net he quickly noted this was not the usual
variety of Brown Trout given up by the “cold loch”. There was no doubt as you
can see from the photo below this was a specimen of the accursed Rainbow Trout
species. In its own place a tolerable species but in our wild loch absolute
vermin! The fish weighed a pound in weight and looked to be lean and not on a
par with a similar farmed fish used to stock the “plastic” fisheries. Also
unlike many farmed fish the specimen caught was full finned and highly coloured
and on one flank had a deep gash now healed probably caused by one of the many
fish predators that we have to put up with who fish on our lochs!

So how did it come to be
in St Mary’s loch? We had a discussion yesterday and the most likely reason we
concluded is that a visiting Pike angler live baiting (illegal in Scotland)
released the fish at the end of the day into the loch a good while ago. Another
possible reason is that the fish was an escapee from a fish farm as there
exists one further down the Yarrow valley. Another possibility of course is
that some misguided angler has introduced a few in the hope of establishing a
new species resident in the loch.

Whatever the reason,
these fish are alien to our loch and if any are caught by anglers they must be
humanely dispatched without delay and reported to the club which was exactly
the action carried out by Stevie. We had a brief discussion about the
possibility of such fish breeding as there have been reports of Rainbows
breeding in some areas of the country but these are few and far between! If
breeding were to occur of course it would be a disaster for us as these are
voracious predators who would compete with our indigenous species of Brown Trout
for food and habitat making the continued existence of our Brown Trout
population precarious indeed!

Photo 02 - Les points out the healed gash for those who have not been to Specsavers!

We need at this stage to
reiterate our policy on alien species. Any angler catching a fish not
indigenous to the lochs must on every occasion humanely destroy such a creature
and give the carcass to the club in order that we can forward it on for
forensic examination. It goes without saying that anyone caught introducing any
species of fish into the loch will be barred from fishing and reported to the
police and the Tweed Commission for further action to be taken!

We are confident that
there is no breeding population in the lochs but anglers should fastidiously
report any abnormal fish to the club. “Brownbows” the result of inter breeding
between Brown Trout and Rainbow Trout have been created in some fish farms and
laboratories but not in the wild as far as I am aware. We need to protect our Brown Trout population at any cost so don’t even
think about introducing alien species into our loch, if you are caught the
consequences will be serious indeed! For some good reading on the subject
of Rainbow Trout click the link below

Update
Stevie kindly phoned today after gutting the Trout and his observations were
that the flesh was lightly coloured pink and the intestinal tract contained
invertebrates and flys. He suspects the Trout to be a fish farm escapee which
has been in the loch around a year. Very credible theory Stevie, but I doubt we
will ever know with certainty!

Muppets on the loch!

Yes we showed a photo of
some “rubbish” left last week which is part of the tale. Two East Europeans
booked an Arran boat with an engine last Sunday to be picked up at 08.00hrs.
They arrived at 10.10hrs without as much as an apology or phone call to let us
know the situation. One was obviously suffering from the previous evening’s
alcohol intake but the non intoxicated chap was deemed competent enough to take
charge of our boat. After trying unsuccessfully to beat the price down they set
off without incident and I went up to speak with Keith Young one of our valued
members and club bailiff, immediately on arrival Keith began remonstrating
about the five people on the boat doing doughnuts over his Pike lines.

Of course only two
people had paid to fish and we don’t normally issue permits for people to act
like Muppets! Of course by now they were long gone towards the bottom of the
loch and having other matters to attend to would catch up with them later. Speaking
with some visitors to the loch from down England I noted the “rubbish” lying
around and asked the English lads if they knew who had left this tat lying
around. They weren’t sure but said the collection had been left unattended for
over two hours.

With the thought of the
rubbish being scattered by black and white men I decided to bag the lot and
remove it for disposal. Filling the last of three bags the offending boat
mentioned earlier came towards me at speed with a couple of the inhabitants
shouting unintelligible words (curses in Polish I assume!)! It seems the
“rubbish” belonged to them, and comprised their lunch, snacks and liquid intake
along with an eight inch filleting knife! They knew of course they had been
rumbled and I gave them the choice of paying me for the extra permits or paying
the police with the added bonus of possible arrest! They paid me!

They were very coy as to
what the filleting knife was to be used for and heavily protested that it was
not for the filleting of fish caught on our lochs! I believe it was for this
purpose and delivered the coup de grace. They are now barred from fishing on
our lochs for a period as yet to be determined. Don’t mistakenly believe that
we were born yesterday; we have seen it all before many times! With observant
members like Keith your chances of beating the system are very slight indeed! Keith
many thanks for your help regarding this incident!

Photo 03 - Black and wild on the Lowes yesterday!

An unwitting streaker!

Reported by Keith one of
our bailiffs on the loch. Some anglers combining a fishing trip with a stag do
last night caused quite a rumpus during their celebrations. The groom to be was
diligently filled with alcohol until it was coming out his ears soaking his
shoulders! He was then stripped of all clothing and sent out of the tent and
left to stumble around in a catatonic state in which he knew not what day it
was or where he was!

It turns out that he
stumbled into the garden of one of the local residents on Summerhope and she
got such a fright that she called the police. I mean how often do you come
across a naked man stumbling around your garden? By the time the police arrived
he was safely back in his tent sleeping off what would have been a massive
hangover! Speaking to Keith they ascertained that there was no malice intended
simply a stupid boyish prank gone wrong and they took no further action. What
we would say to the lads however is by all means enjoy yourselves but keep an
eye on the object of your prank to prevent causing alarm to local residents who
are more used to spotting rabbits and birds rather than naked men imitating a
zombie aimlessly stumbling around where they have no right to be! Keith has
spoken to the lads and relayed this to them so we won’t be expecting a repeat
performance! We fish on the lochs as
guests of the landowners and the local community; they really shouldn’t be
exposed to this kind of behaviour!

For the benefit of anglers!

We have now made a few
changes to our policy of boat hire on the lochs. Firstly the initial method of
hiring a boat must be through our loch keeper Aaron who can be contacted on 07724523777. Now if for whatever reason you cannot hire a boat
through Aaron you may hire a 14ft rowing boat from either the Glen Cafe or the
Tibbie Shiels Inn. A boat has been prepared with oars locked in and lifejackets
are available free of charge from these establishments. You simply obtain the key
and unlock the boat and oars, enjoy your days fishing, lock up the boat and
oars and return the key and lifejackets to the outlet you hired them from.
These are emergency measures and already have assisted a few anglers. Our fundamental
aim is to do all we can to accommodate your wishes to help you have a super day
out in this most beautiful place! Boats with engines cannot be hired by this
method if you require these please contact Aaron above.

The wider world in my view!

Not looking so good for Lord Snooty!

Yes figures released
midweek show that at the time Lord Snooty assumed power in coalition with his
band of clueless, lying puppets the Lib – Dems Tory party membership stood at
250,000. How sad it must be for Snooty and his entourage to see the latest
figure showing a paltry membership of around 80,000! A number of factors are
responsible for this, the most prominent being persistent unmitigated bungling!
Yes stumbling from one policy to another without any forethought, any planning,
and any prospective evaluation! No, none of these essential tools, simply try
it and see in the manner of the pie tax keeps us right up there on the world
stage with a government of fools and jesters!

Unfortunately the
chances of getting on to the right path are remote indeed! Preferring to devote
valuable time to irrelevancies such as gay marriage, the real issues such as
unemployment and poverty are left to fester! The failure to deal with
immigration effectively has seen droves of party loyalists throwing their lot
in with the unsavoury UKIP. Putting a few vans on the road with racist slogans
on the side and cutting border staff makes matters worse as they have since found
out! Getting into bed with the soon to be extinct Lib – Dem puppets did nothing
for their fortunes simply alienating more of their number! It is impossible to
have faith in such lily livered dimwits as they systematically dismantle all
the things we hold dear and at the same time increase the national debt that
they insist they are reducing. Under these fools the rich get richer and the
rest of us bear the brunt of their clueless policies! The future is most definitely not bright!

Unemployment is down or is it!

I always remember at
School one lady teacher who could teach, telling us that you can always twist
and manipulate figure to support your cause! Most emphatically she was correct!
Yes the statisticians servicing the Con – Dems would have us believe that
unemployment is down, and it is using their figures! There are more part time
workers than ever before mostly in retail producing nothing making a meagre
living desperately keen to convert to full time work but finding there is none.

Splitting jobs doubles
the number and this is being used as a tool to assist the posh boys!
Internships where people work for nothing allegedly gaining skills which would
assist them to increase their employability whereas the reality is that devious
employers get slave workers and have to pay them nothing!

Similarly the zero hours
contracts increasing at a furious pace take thousands off the unemployment
numbers. Oh indeed it’s great for employers, but what about the worker seeking
to bring up a family and buy a flat? The lack of regular income damns all these
worthy aspirations and serves only to assist Lord Snooty’s pals! They want the working classes back in the
gutter I regret to say they are succeeding!

Good old Glasgow Corporation!

I read through the week
of a novel, practical and worthy initiative by the good people on the council,
they want to set up a power generation and distribution company! What a
sensible idea! By so doing they would marginalise the greed ridden spawned of
Butcher Thatcher privatised power companies. Taking care of their own
electricity needs and selling surplus back to the national grid. the cheap realistically priced power could be used to supply electricity to the thousands in the city made near destitute by the uncaring Con - Dems! It sounds like
a real goer my faith in politics restored! One in the eye for the
energy fat cats and out of touch posh boys!

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